TOTO is one of the top producers of electrostatic chucks used in NAND memory production. You guessed it. The boom in memory prices and shortages, driven by AI data centres stockpiling storage, has brought loads of business to TOTO.
They don’t sell these to Samsung or SK Hynix directly. Instead, TOTO is reportedly a dominant supplier to Lam Research, whose cryogenic etching machines are then used by every major NAND maker including Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Kioxia, and YMTC, to carve channel holes through 200+ layer 3D NAND chips
It comes down to ceramics. TOTO has been making advanced ceramic parts for over 40 years — and it turns out, those same ceramic capabilities translate into electrostatic chucks, the precision plates that hold silicon wafers in place during chip manufacturing.
In other words, when AI drives memory demand, Samsung orders machines from Lam Research, and Lam Research orders ceramic chucks from a Japanese toilet company.
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